There’s no denying that virtual calls / vlogging / live streaming / singing is one of the hottest online trends right now. No longer constrained by the static images and text of the humble blog, streamers and YouTubers are changing the face of internet marketing. It might surprise you that the top YouTuber making money over the last year wasn’t a celebrity or fashion guru, but a 9-year-old kid.
I have always mentioned that audio should be the utmost importance over fancy camera when it comes to video recording or even streaming. And for those of you who understand the importance of audio, what sucks is that these microphones can be really….really expensive.
The Comica STM USB Cardioid Condenser Microphone right below for your entertainment needs.
Build Quality
The microphone had quite a nice feel to it, not too light neither it was too heavy as well at 256 grams. It comes with a gunmetal matte finish and a metal housing, close enough to a premium condenser microphone built. Theres quite a fair amount of physical controls and the ports that is available on the microphone as well, where first there is two huge nods in front for Gain and Volume. On the right, there is switch to change between a cardioid pattern or a bi-directional pattern. Below that, there is a very welcome headphones port to easily monitor your audio and then there is a mute button. It comes built with a USB-C port. The microphone is easily adjustable up and down while its on a stand.
Specifications
It comes with a 16mm Gold Plating Condenser mic. It has two patterns for the microphone audio capture, which is cardioid and bi-directional, it has a 20Hz to 20kHz frequency response which makes the microphone perfect a different type of spectrum of audio recording situations. The microphone is bus powered so you don’t need an extra adapter to get the microphone to turn on, just via the USB-C Port would do.
Sound Test
First of all, my advice is to get the right amount of gain is to monitor the sound first by plugging in a headphones and adjust the gain accordingly. The gain adjustment should be set according to your environment, so for example if you are in a noisier environment turn start with the gain knob at 9 o’clock and slowly turn it up and stop once you hear too much of your background noise, where for my case with the air-conditioning turned on, i will just leave it at 9 o’clock. The volume knob should not be confused with the volume of the microphone as it is the volume adjustments for the headphones and NOT the microphone so keep that in mind where I have set mine to 3 o’ clock for the optimum monitoring volume.
In terms of distance, like ALL condenser microphones the closer you are the better it will sound but for some cases we can’t go super close to the microphone, so I found that a distance of 6-inches would be the best.
«FULL SOUND TEST IN VIDEO REVIEW HERE »
Conclusion
As a person who absolutely appreciates VERY good audio and spends a lot of money for my current YouTube setup, I have to say that I was REALLY impressed with the overall sound quality even without messing around with the EQ once again my tip is to get as close as possible to the mic to get an optimum sound quality with the gain not more than 9 o’ clock.
You’ve got me fully supporting your purchase on this unit.
